dawn o' day;
They played at sports; they played at love; they played at being
gay.
They were but empty, silk-clad shells; their souls had leaked away.
He saw the sweat-shop and the mill where little children toiled,
The sunless rooms where mothers slaved and unborn souls were
spoiled;
While those whose greedy, selfish lives had thrust the toilers
there,
He saw whirled down broad avenues, clothed all with raiment fair.

He saw in homes made beautiful with all that gold can give
Unhappy souls at odds with life, not knowing how to live.
He saw fair, pampered women turn from motherhood's sweet joy,
Obsessed with methods to prevent or mania to destroy.
He saw men sell their souls to vice and avarice and greed;
He heard race quarrelling with race and creed decrying creed;
And shameful wealth and waste He saw, and shameful want and need.

He saw bold little children come from church and schoolroom, blind
To suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind;
He heard them taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered
kin;
And no voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin.
He heard the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun's report;
He saw the morbid craze to kill, which Christian men called sport.

And then God hid His grieving face behind a wall of cloud,
On earth they said, 'A thunder-storm'--but God had wept aloud.